A nanowire is a relatively thin wire, for example, with a diameter or width measured in nanometers (nm). Nanowires can have diameters or widths such as, for example, about 4 nm to 10 nm. Nanowire devices can be a viable device option instead of fin field-effect transistors (FinFETs). For example, a nanowire can be used as the fin structure in a dual-gate, tri-gate or gate-all-around (GAA) FET device. Nanowires can have a smaller perimeter than fins, but also larger external resistance due to an under-spacer component. Complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) scaling can be enabled by the use of stacked nanowires, which offer superior electrostatics and higher current density per footprint area than FinFETs. In a stacked nanosheet GAA FET process flow, inner-spacer replacement can be an important process to reduce capacitance and prevent leakage between gate and source/drain (S/D) regions.